Blind Kiss(59)

My dad laughed from the doorway. “Nice.” I walked into Carissa’s bedroom, grabbed my bag, threw on a T-shirt and shoes, and met my dad in the stairwell.

“Where are you staying, son?” my dad asked as we walked toward the car. “Not here, I hope? Looks like you’ve been evicted by the little lady.”

I shrugged. “Just couch-surfing. Mike already got a roommate.”

“You planning on staying in Denver and looking for a job?”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

We got into his truck and he started the engine. Without looking at me, he said, “I’ll float you. Get you set up here until you find work.”

Relief washed over me. “Seriously, Dad, that would help me out so much—”

“On one condition . . .”

Oh shit.

“Penny wants you to be in her wedding. And I told her I would walk her down the aisle.”

“What?”

It had been two months since I’d walked out of Penny’s basement after she told me she was going to marry Lance. We hadn’t spoken since then.

“She’s been coming over a lot. Hanging around, shooting arrows in my backyard. She misses you. She wants you to be in the wedding. It’s in a month.”

“She feels so close to you that she’d ask you to give her away?”

He pulled up at a stoplight and turned to look at me. “Her exact words were, ‘Gavin told me you were sad you didn’t have a daughter to walk down the aisle.’ So this was actually your doing.”

It was true. I remember him telling me that once, and me telling Penny. He wished he would’ve had more children, for both of us, so I would’ve had a sibling.

“And then . . . ?” I asked.

“And then she said she missed you like crazy and wanted you to be in the wedding. Lance is okay with it.” He paused and looked over at me. “You better be there, son.”

“Dad—”

“You better be there, son.” He wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“Fine, I’ll be there.”

After “brunch,” my dad and I looked through the local listings for apartment rentals and put down a full month’s rent on a little studio that afternoon.

I slept on the floor for a week until my dad was able to haul my stuff from Fort Collins in his truck. “Don’t forget the terms of our agreement,” he said to me before leaving.

How could I forget?

A week later, I finally called Penny.

“Hey.”

I could hear her breath catch in her throat before she uttered a single word. “Hi.”

“So you want me to be in your wedding? I’ll only accept officiant or ring bearer.”

She laughed. It had been too long since I’d heard her laugh. “I want you to be a groomsman. Will you do that for me? Lance’s sister is going to be a bridesmaid, so we have to even out the two sides.”

“I want to be on your side.”

“Gavin, I want you to be in the wedding. This is what I’m asking, and it would mean a lot to me if you said yes, okay?”

“Okay.” I’d do anything for her. “I’m wearing Converse, though. I’ll do the suit, but I’m wearing Converse. Okay? No arguments.”

“Come barefoot if you want. I just want you there.”

“Aren’t you ready to pop?”

“I’ll be very close on the big day. Don’t laugh at how I look.”

“I would never.” I was lying. I planned to devote the entire day to making jokes about Penny wearing white over her gargantuan belly.


PENNY’S WEDDING WAS in a cheap hall where they held senior dances and Bar Mitzvahs. The centerpieces were decorated with fake flowers and the whole scene just screamed “shotgun wedding.”

I showed up with my dad an hour before the ceremony and found Penny sitting in a backroom on a couch: legs spread, giant belly making her already-huge dress look silly. “My mom picked everything out. Can you tell?” she said, laughing.

She tried to sit up to hug me, but I reached my hand out and said, “No, you stay there. How’s your knee?”

“Hurts like a motherfucker.”

I looked around the backroom, with makeup and curling irons strewn about. “Where are the bridesmaids, and who’d you partner me with? Please say Ling.”

“Don’t kill me. We just did it based on size. You’re so tall, and Ling and Kiki are so short.”

“Well, who the hell is left, Penny?”

“Lance’s sister, Isabelle. She seems nice. Really pretty. Looks like Christina Ricci, but taller.”

For I moment I thought it didn’t sound so bad. All I had to do was walk down the aisle with her arm linked through mine, and if she was cute . . . but then I remembered she was Lance’s sister.

“Whatever.” I plopped down next to Penny on the old floral couch. “Where are they anyway? Aren’t they supposed to be back here, giving you moral support or primping you or something?”

“They’re on a far more important mission: buying me ice cream.” She smiled wide and then turned her body toward me and rested her bare feet on my lap.

I laughed. “Okay, so what’s up with the dress? It’s not Penny-like at all. Why all the taffeta and tulle?”